Quote

Try not to write the parts that people skip.

Elmore Leonard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Elmore Leonard
Age: 87 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 11
Died: 2013
Died: August 20
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Dutch Leonard
Elmore John Leonard Jr.
Skip
Parts
Write
Writing
Trying
People

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

Image
It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
Elmore Leonard
Image
To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
Elmore Leonard
Image
What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
Image
If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I don't judge in my books. I don't have to have the antagonist get shot or the protagonist win. It's just how it comes out. I'm just telling a story.
Elmore Leonard
Image
There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said' . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.
Elmore Leonard
Image
A man can be in two different places and he will be two different men. Maybe if you think of more places he will be more men, but two is enough for now.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
Image
There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or oceans, rockbound or with palm trees. And there are cities like Detroit that have to work for a living.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: they want to be happy.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I do have fun writing, and a long time ago, I told myself, 'You got to have fun at this, or it'll drive you nuts.'
Elmore Leonard
Image
At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Skip the boring parts.
Elmore Leonard
Image
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I focus on characters as individuals with attitudes and write each scene from a particular character's point of view. That way, even narrative passages take on the character's sound. I don't want the reader to be aware of me, writing.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I don't believe in writer's block. I don't know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I'm going to get through. It's just a matter of finding a way.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Elmore Leonard